Do you know about smokejumpers? They’re brave, self-sufficient firefighters who parachute into remote areas wearing eighty pounds of gear and ready to fight a forest fire. If the jump goes well, they land safely. After extinguishing the fire, they may have a ten-mile hike out. It’s not a job for the faint of heart, slow of mind, or weak of back.

Have you considered that you may be a smokejumper?

Johanna recently blogged about Making Milestones Visible. Jerry added that milestones not only need to be visible, they have to be actionable. The example they used was having a vehicle go 100,000 miles. Data To Johanna it was a milestone she missed because her odometer lacked the resolution to let her know she was getting close. The entire last mile looked like 99999. It’s really difficult to pay attention looking for the next increment AND drive safely at the same time. If the odometer displayed

Words interest me. They don’t exist in the real world. They’re the names, and descriptions we give to the items and events we notice in our environment. A classic on how well this works is Blindmen. It’s a short read, I’ll wait here. Bad Matters Worse The bigger and more complex object we try to describe, the more problems we have accurately doing so. So what happens when we try to describe something that doesn’t exist using words that don’t really exist? Sort of a

Problems or Opportunities? Where should you focus your effort?

Models are like kitchen utensils. You need a variety of them, and you should know when and how to use them. They should be useful for more than a single task. I recently started exploring the first explicit model I learned years ago.

I recently had the opportunity to observe problem solving at its more pure state. We took our grand-daughters, Jessica (4), and Nikki (2) to the park. For a period of time, they played on a “jungle gym” that looks like

“Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.” Murphy’s Golden Rule

Esther Derby recently ranted about Force Ranking. I’m not an expert on force ranking, or maybe as an independent consultant I am. I’m force ranked every time I work with a client.

I’m catching up on some reading this week, and I just read Willem’s disagreement with Jerry’s thoughts. Truth be known, I agree with both Jerry and Willem.

A puzzle is a problem that one cannot solve because of a self-imposed constraint. Creativity is shackled by self-imposed constraints. Therefore, the key to freeing it lies in developing an ability to identify such constraints and deliberately removing them. Russell Ackhoff So many books, so little time! When Steve recently recommended The Art of Problem Solving by Russell L. Ackoff, I promptly ordered it from my friends at Amazon. Originally published in 1978, this book retains its relevance. The book has two parts: The Art